Microsoft Office still dominates market share of office suites. Businesses have often rejected free Office alternatives. However, whether this will continue is uncertain. With the cost of a price plan for Microsoft Office, the average home user or small business will welcome a free alternative. Fortunately, there are some truly excellent free alternatives available for Linux (and other operating systems). Not all of the office suites featured here are released under an open source license, but they are all free to download and use without charge.

<A HREF="http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20140824033911347/FreeOfficeSuites.html">Complete story</A>

Summary:
Creep occurs on SD585 soldered balls of some cross-connect boards on  Huawei transmission OptiX OSN 3500 equipment so these boards repeatedly reset, fail to work, and report BD_STATUS alarms.

[Problem Description]
Trigger conditions:
There is a possibility that this problem occurs as a result of long-term exposure of the boards involved to high temperature.
Symptom:
1. Boards are reset repeatedly and fail to work.
2. NEs may report BD_STATUS alarms or COMMUN_FAIL alarms on cross-connect boards.System control boards may report BIOS_STATUS alarms on cross-connect boards.
Identification method:
The problem can be identified if the following two conditions are met:
1. The boards are manufactured in Feb 2010, Apr 2010, May 2010, Jul 2010, Aug 2010, or Mar 2011.
2. The cross-connect boards are repeatedly reset and fail to work. The board BOMs are found in the attached Board Delivery Information.
[Root Cause]
The SD585 chip radiator uses the thick spring, which applies high levels of stress to the chip. The soldered ball of the SD585 chip may deform and short-circuit as a result of long-term exposure to high temperature. Therefore, the board repeatedly reset and fail to work.

[Impact and Risk]
1. Services are not influenced because of the 1+1 protection scheme is configured on the cross-connect boards. When a cross-connect board is faulty, services are switched over to the other cross-connect board.

2. In extra situations, both cross-connect boards configured in the 1+1 protection scheme become faulty in a short time. As a result, the NE fails to work and services are interrupted.
[Measures and Solutions]
Recovery measures:
Replace the faulty cross-connect board.

Reference and buy new similar boards in  Huawei network product distributors 

Preventive measures:
None
Solution:
Replace the faulty boards.

Material handling after replacement:

Return the spare parts for repair.

[Rectification Instructions]
Replace the faulty boards.
SSN1SXCSA02 (03030KBM) boards are out of production, so replace SSN1SXCSA02 boards with SSN1SXCSA01 (03030DKF) when filling in an electric process application for board rectification in batches. The two kinds of boards can be mixedly inserted or completely replace each other. Active and standby boards of the same type are recommended.

VLC is a must-have media player if you are using Linux for your entertainment needs. When it comes to PC entertainment, it's good to have a program that handles most of your needs. VLC has multiple tools for a good video playback experience. There is something new to learn the more you use it. More importantly, it gives its all when reading removable media.

I have selected my pick of desktop environments that are excellent candidates for older hardware. They typically run well on low-spec machines, even a system with a Pentium II 266MHz CPU, a processor that is now 16 years old. All of the desktops are released under freely distributable licenses. If your Linux box feels sluggish in general use, try one of the desktops featured below. It may just save you from discarding a perfectly good machine.

<A HREF="http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20140831080320393/LeanDesktops.html">Continue reading</A>

The short answer is:

Perhaps you can’t. Well, you can, but that means that you need to use a hammer.

The long answer:

You could use the build in ATA Secure Erase command (if your drive supports that), or you can overwrite the SSD multiple times, but…

There are studies out there showing that the data could be recovered even after overwriting multiple times.

Read on over here...

I run a multi-user system. Most users access resources using ssh client. How can I stop leaking process information to all users on Linux operating systems? How do I prevent users from seeing processes that do not belong to them on a Debian/Ubuntu/RHEL/CentOS Linux server?

Linux: Hide Processes From Other Users

Summary: The clock chips used on some TN55 of Huawei OSN product Optical OSN 8800 NE have design defects. As a result, the failure rate of the chips is 5% after they are in service for 2 years. In the case of a clock chip failure, services on these boards will be interrupted and cannot be restored even after you remove and reinsert or perform a cold reset on the boards. [Problem Description] Trigger conditions: The chip failure rate is 5% within 2 years. The chip failure rate is proportional to the service period but is irrelevant to application scenarios. Symptom: On the transmission faulty board, a Hard_Bad alarm is reported and cannot be cleared and services are interrupted. Identification method: 1. Check the bar codes of the boards against the attachment. If the bar codes are included in the attachment which provided by the official website, you can determine that the boards are at risk of a clock chip failure. 2. If the previously described symptom occurs on a TN55 board, you can determine that the board is at risk of a clock chip failure. You can also query the register using the following commands. [Root Cause] The clock chip has design defects. As a result, the TN55 boards have 5% failure rate within 2 years. [Impact and Risk] Optical OSN 8800: On a board with a defective clock chip, a Hard_Bad alarm is reported and services are interrupted. The services cannot be restored even after you remove and reinsert or perform a cold reset on the board. The chip failure rate is 5% within 2 years and is proportional to the service period. [Measures and Solutions] Recovery measures Replace the boards with a defective clock chip. Solutions: Replace the boards with a defective clock chip. Material handling after replacement: For markets outside China directly scrap the boards. For markets inside China, send the boards back to the Spare Parts Center for disposal.

This article provides my pick of the best open source command line file transfer programs. The software featured here supports a number of different protocols. They offer shell-like command syntax, and are great for scripting purposes.

<A HREF="http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20140825031841844/FileTransfer.html">Read article</A>

System Activity Report, also known as sar, is one of the most important utility for Linux system administrators when it comes to performance monitoring of a Linux system. sar provides an overview of the Linux system with various crucial metrics which include Processor, Memory, I/O Devices and Network related information. With sar, one can gather and store the information whenever there is an issue with the Linux server, and then use this data in order to deal with similar issue in future by comparing these system statistics with the ones at that point of time. In brief, historical analysis can be made a lot easier, when sar is used.

With sar, one can get information regarding following metrics:

• Overall CPU Utilization
• Individual CPU Utilization
• Memory Utilization
• Swap Utilization
• Block Device Statistics
• I/O Related Details
• System Buffer and Context Switch Related Information
• Network Related Statistics
• Memory Allocation

Read more at YourOwnLinux

• Acceder a grub, desplazarse a la línea del kernel que se quiere arrancar. Pulsar "a" (append). Añadir "init=/bin/sh"
• Cambiar ro por rw, para evitar tener que remontar después /

kernel [...] rw root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root [...] rd_LVM_LV=VolGroup/lv_root rd_NO_DM rhgb quiet init=/bin/sh

• Pulsar INTRO para que arranque el sistema con el kernel que hemos modificado las opciones.
• Una vez accedemos al sistema (y tenemos / en modo rw), arrancar el demonio udev:

sh-4.1# /sbin/udevd -d

• Activar los LV's del VG que queremos:

sh-4.1# lvchange -ay system_vg

• Para reiniciar la máquina, ejecutar:

echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger